Dave Grohl was inspired to make Foo Fighters a success by the hate he got from Nirvana fans after forming the band.
Dave Grohl
The 51-year-old rocker created Foo Fighters following the dissolution of the iconic grunge group in the wake of frontman Kurt Cobain's death in 1994 at the age of 27.
Grohl - who played drums in Nirvana - never worried about the backlash he received from some Nirvana fans for moving on to a musical project and instead used their negativity as motivation.
He said: "They were like, 'How dare you be in a band again? Your music is f***ing s**t and that was a real band and you're not.'
"It's like, 'You really think that's gonna stop me? It only makes me wanna f***ing do it more, y'know. So, you can keep it coming if you want but I don't give a f**k."
Grohl has always considered his two bands to be separate entities and he doesn't consider them to be connected to each.
Recalling the first ever Foo Fighters gig in a squat in Seattle, he said: "Honestly, still to this day I have a disconnect between Nirvana and the Foo Fighters. I don't connect the two. So I never worried about the expectation. But, still, I was f***ing terrified, in someone's loft.
"It becomes a baptism, y'know. Once you've done it, you can only go forward."
But even nine Foo Fighters albums later, Grohl will always acknowledge how much of an "advantage" his time in Nirvana and association with Cobain was to the early years of his second project.
Speaking to MOJO magazine, he said: "I've never been afraid to say that if it weren't for Nirvana, the Foo Fighters wouldn't be in the same position that we're in now.
"We had an advantage right out of the gate that there was an interest in the band because of that. I mean, it's obvious."
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